This day in History

[Shermatt]

Pictured: Elwood Haynes first car

On this day, May 25th 1898
Elwood Haynes and Elmer Apperson organized the Haynes-Apperson Company in Kokomo, Indiana. Credited with having built America's first gas-powered car for much of his lifetime, Elwood Haynes was one of the most brilliant inventors in the early car industry. The Haynes-Apperson Company was his first foray into the mass production of cars. Together, the pair expected to manufacture 50 cars per year. Most famous as a metallurgist, Haynes was the first man to outfit his cars with all-aluminum engines, and to build his car bodies of nickel-plated steel. Haynes and Apperson shocked the world when they fulfilled the terms of a buyer's agreement by delivering their car from Kokomo to New York City. It was the first 1,000-mile car trip undertaken in the United States.

May 25th 1927
Ford Motor Company announced end of Model T and its replacement by Model A.

May 25th 1985
The Charlotte Motor Speedway, a k a the Mecca of Motorsports, held its first race. The Speedway, and the city of Charlotte itself, are symbols of the new era of NASCAR racing.

May 25th 1977
Memorial Day weekend opens with an intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas' blockbuster Star Wars movies hits American theaters.

May 25, 1935, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Babe Ruth hits his 714th home run, a record for career home runs that would stand for almost 40 years. This was one of Ruth’s last games, and the last home run of his career. Ruth went four for four on the day, hitting three home runs and driving in six runs.

May 25th 1895
Playwright Oscar Wilde is taken to Reading Gaol in London after being convicted of sodomy. The famed writer of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest brought attention to his private life in a feud with Sir John Sholto Douglas, whose son was intimately involved with Wilde.


May 25th 1985
On this day in 1994, the ashes of 71-year-old George Swanson are buried (according to Swanson's request) in the driver's seat of his 1984 white Corvette in Hempfield County, Pennsylvania.
Swanson, a beer distributor and former U.S. Army sergeant during World War II, died the previous March 31 at the age of 71. He had reportedly been planning his automobile burial for some time, buying 12 burial plots at Brush Creek Cemetery, located 25 miles east of Pittsburgh, in order to ensure that his beloved Corvette would fit in his grave with him. After his death, however, the cemetery balked, amid concerns of vandalism and worries that other clients would be offended by the outlandish nature of the burial. They finally relented after weeks of negotiations, but insisted that the burial be private, and that the car be drained of fluids to protect the environment.
According to the AP, Swanson's widow, Caroline, transported her husband's ashes to the cemetery on the seat of her own white 1993 Corvette. The ashes were then placed on the driver's seat of his 10-year-old car, which had only 27,000 miles on the odometer. Inside the car, mourners also placed a lap quilt made by a group of women from Swanson's church, a love note from his wife and an Engelbert Humperdinck tape in the cassette deck, with the song "Release Me" cued up and ready to play. The license plate read "HI-PAL," which was Swanson's go-to greeting when he didn't remember a name. As 50 mourners looked on, a crane lowered the Corvette into a 7-by-7-by-16-foot hole.

[Shermatt]

On this day, May 26th 1923
First Le Mans Grand Prix d'Endurance is run.

May 26th 1927
Ford Motor Company manufactured its 15 millionth Model T automobile

May 26th 1897
The first copies of the classic vampire novel Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appear in London bookshops

May 26th 1937
Union leaders, Ford Service Department men clashed in violent confrontation on Miller Road Overpass outside Gate 4 of Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, MI (three months after UAW achieved its first landmark victory at Ford, had forced company to negotiate policy toward organized labor by staging lengthy sit-down strike at Rouge complex); UAW organizers Walter Reuther, Bob Kanter, J.J. Kennedy, Richard Frankensteen were distributing leaflets among workers at Rouge complex when approached by gang of Bennett's men; Ford Servicemen brutally beat four unionists while many other union sympathizers, including 11 women, were injured in resulting melee - Battle of the Overpass.

May 26th 1907
John Wayne, an actor who came to epitomize the American West, is born in Winterset, Iowa.

[Shermatt]

Ford Model T & Henry Ford. Its named as the world's most influential car of the twentieth century after an International poll

On this day, May 27th 1927
Production of the Ford Model T officially ended after 15,007,033 units had been built. The Model T sold more units than any other car model in history, until the Volkswagen Beetle eclipsed its record in the 1970s.

May 27th 1930
Chrysler Building in NYC. opened as world's tallest building.

May 27th 1923
First Le Mans Grand Prix d'Endurance is concluded. Winners Andre Lagache and Renee Leonard covered 1,372.928 miles in a Chenard-Walker car. Le Mans is the world's longest-running 24-hour event, a type of racing that's considered the ultimate test of sports car performance.

[R_Beckhaus]

At 10:39 am on Tuesday 27th May 1941 the German Battleship "Bismark" slid beneath the waves after a running battle with elements of the Royal Navy. Of a crew of 2,200 only 114 survived.

[Shermatt]

On this day, May 28th 1937
The government of Germany--then under the control of Adolf Hitler of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party--forms a new state-owned automobile company, then known as Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH. Later that year, it was renamed simply Volkswagenwerk, or "The People's Car Company."
Originally operated by the German Labor Front, a Nazi organization, Volkswagen was headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany. In addition to his ambitious campaign to build a network of autobahns and limited access highways across Germany, Hitler's pet project was the development and mass production of an affordable yet still speedy vehicle that could sell for less than 1,000 Reich marks (about $140 at the time). To provide the design for this "people's car," Hitler called in the Austrian automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche. In 1938, at a Nazi rally, the Fuhrer declared: "It is for the broad masses that this car has been built. Its purpose is to answer their transportation needs, and it is intended to give them joy." However, soon after the KdF (Kraft-durch-Freude)-Wagen ("Strength-Through-Joy" car) was displayed for the first time at the Berlin Motor Show in 1939, World War II began, and Volkswagen halted production. After the war ended, with the factory in ruins, the Allies would make Volkswagen the focus of their attempts to resuscitate the German auto industry.
Volkswagen sales in the United States were initially slower than in other parts of the world, due to the car's historic Nazi connections as well as its small size and unusual rounded shape. In 1959, the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach launched a landmark campaign, dubbing the car the "Beetle" and spinning its diminutive size as a distinct advantage to consumers. Over the next several years, VW became the top-selling auto import in the United States. In 1960, the German government sold 60 percent of Volkswagen's stock to the public, effectively denationalizing it. Twelve years later, the Beetle surpassed the longstanding worldwide production record of 15 million vehicles, set by Ford Motor Company's legendary Model T between 1908 and 1927.
With the Beetle's design relatively unchanged since 1935, sales grew sluggish in the early 1970s. VW bounced back with the introduction of sportier models such as the Rabbit and later, the Golf. In 1998, the company began selling the highly touted "New Beetle" while still continuing production of its predecessor. After nearly 70 years and more than 21 million units produced, the last original Beetle rolled off the line in Puebla, Mexico, on July 30, 2003.

May 28th 1916
Barney Oldfield ran a qualifying lap in his front-wheel-drive Christie at 102.6mph. It was the first time any driver had rounded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in excess of 100mph. But Oldfield ended up finishing fifth on race day, as Dario Resta beat the field in his Peugeot.

May 28th 1937
The Golden Gate Bridge opened to vehicular traffic on this day in 1937. One of the world's largest single-span suspension bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge was designed by Clifford Paine.

[Shermatt]

After the verdict : Preston Tucker auto magnate and wife freed of fraud charge


On this day, May 29th 1950
Preston Tucker's lawsuit against his former prosecutors was thrown out of court. Tucker had been indicted for stock fraud after managing to produce only 53 of his long-awaited Tucker cars. The court case ruined Tucker's chances of ever releasing the car on a grand scale. Tucker charged the Big Three with trumping up a conspiracy to ground his competitive operation. Eventually all the charges against Tucker were dropped. Hungry to clear his name, Preston Tucker sued his former prosecutors on various grounds related to the destruction of his reputation. It was generally believed that Tucker's initial acquittal was an act of charity granted to an overly-ambitious, failed entrepreneur. Tucker's case was dismissed after little consideration. It was Preston Tucker's last-gasp effort to save his name, and it failed. His reputation has fared far better in recent years with the help of the Hollywood movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream, starring Jeff Bridges, that portrays Tucker as a visionary in a practical age.

29th May 1971
Al Unser became the first racer to win a single-day purse of over $200,000 at the Indy 500. The only racer besides A.J. Foyt to win four Indy 500s, Al Unser, too, has a legitimate claim to the title of Indy's greatest.

29th May 2005
On this day in 2005, 23-year-old Danica Patrick becomes the first female driver to take the lead in the storied Indianapolis 500.

[Shermatt]

Pictured: The Marmon Wasp


On this day, May 30th 1911
Ray Harroun won the inaugural Indianapolis 500, averaging 74.6mph in the Marmon Wasp. The Indy 500 was the creation of Carl Fisher. In the fall of 1909, Fisher replaced the ruined, crushed-stone surface of his 2.5-mile oval with a brand-new brick one. It was the largest paved, banked oval in the United States. Fisher then made two decisions vital to the success of the Indy 500. First, he determined to hold only one race per year on his Indianapolis Motor Speedway; second, he elected to offer the richest purse in racing as a reward for competing in his annual 500-mile event.

May 30th 1896
First recorded auto accident occurred: Duryea Motor Wagon, driven by Henry Wells from Springfield, MA, collided with bicycle ridden by Evylyn Thomas of New York City.

May 30th 2002
Trabant filed for insolvency protection.

[Mustangpaul]

Australian Explorers
1861  -    Wills returns to the Dig tree to see whether a rescue party has arrived. [more]
1894  -    Explorer David Carnegie finds gold at Niagara Creek, Western Australia. [more]
Australian History
1886  -    The Ly-ee-Moon steamer runs aground off Cape Green lighthouse in southern NSW, Australia, killing 71. [more]
World History
1431  -    Joan of Arc is burned at the stake. [more]
1971  -    Mariner 9, the first artificial satellite of Mars, is launched by the United States.

http://today.wmit.net.au/

[Shermatt]

On this day, May 31st 1870
Professor Edward Joseph De Smedt of the American Asphalt Pavement Company, New York City, received two patents for his invention known as "French asphalt pavement." De Smedt had invented the first practical version of sheet asphalt. On July 29 of the same year, the first road pavement of sheet asphalt was laid on William Street in Newark, New Jersey.

May 31st 1898
Thomas A. Edison received a patent for a "Governor for Motors", a "means for adjusting the governor for any desired speed, and with the means, such as centrifugal governor-*****, for regulating the friction members to maintain a constant speed."

May 31st 1904
Byron J. Carter, of Jackson, MI, received a U.S. patent for "Transmission-Gearing"; "friction-drive" mechanism replaced conventional transmission to provide more precise control of a car's speed; never really caught on, proved susceptible to poor road conditions; technology involved in the friction-drive is, however, related to today's disc brakes.

May 31st 1929
After two years of exploratory visits and friendly negotiations, Ford Motor Company signs a landmark agreement to produce cars in the Soviet Union on this day in 1929.
The Soviet Union, which in 1928 had only 20,000 cars and a single truck factory, was eager to join the ranks of automotive production, and Ford, with its focus on engineering and manufacturing methods, was a natural choice to help. The always independent-minded Henry Ford was strongly in favor of his free-market company doing business with Communist countries.
Signed in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 31, 1929, the contract stipulated that Ford would oversee construction of a production plant at Nizhni Novgorod, located on the banks of the Volga River, to manufacture Model A cars. An assembly plant would also start operating immediately within Moscow city limits. In return, the USSR agreed to buy 72,000 unassembled Ford cars and trucks and all spare parts to be required over the following nine years, a total of some $30 million worth of Ford products. Valery U. Meshlauk, vice chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, signed the Dearborn agreement on behalf of the Soviets. To comply with its side of the deal, Ford sent engineers and executives to the Soviet Union.
At the time the U.S. government did not formally recognize the USSR in diplomatic negotiations, so the Ford agreement was groundbreaking. (A week after the deal was announced the Soviet Union would announce deals with 15 other foreign companies, including E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and RCA.) As Douglas Brinkley writes in "Wheels for the World," his book on Henry Ford and Ford Motor, the automaker was firm in his belief that introducing capitalism was the best way to undermine communism. In any case, Ford's assistance in establishing motor vehicle production facilities in the USSR would greatly impact the course of world events, as the ability to produce these vehicles helped the Soviets defeat Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II. In 1944, according to Brinkley, Stalin wrote to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, calling Henry Ford "one of the world's greatest industrialists" and expressing the hope that "may God preserve him."



Best known to his many fans for one of his most memorable screen incarnations--San Francisco Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan--the actor and Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood is born on this day in 1930, in San Francisco, California.


Near Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question," was executed for his crimes against humanity.
Eichmann was born in Solingen, Germany, in 1906. In November 1932, he joined the Nazi's elite SS (Schutzstaffel) organization, whose members came to have broad responsibilities in Nazi Germany, including policing, intelligence, and the enforcement of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic policies. Eichmann steadily rose in the SS hierarchy, and with the German annexation of Austria in 1938 he was sent to Vienna with the mission of ridding the city of Jews. He set up an efficient Jewish deportment center and in 1939 was sent to Prague on a similar mission. That year, Eichmann was appointed to the Jewish section of the SS central security office in Berlin.

this day 2005..."Deep throat" revealed
W. Mark Felt’s family ends 30 years of speculation, identifying Felt, the former FBI assistant director, as “Deep Throat,” the secret source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal. The Felt family’s admission, made in an article in Vanity Fair magazine, took legendary reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had promised to keep their source’s identity a secret until his death, by surprise. Tapes show that Nixon himself had speculated that Felt was the secret informant as early as 1973.

31st May 1813
In Australia, Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth, reached Mount Blaxland, effectively marking the end of a route across the Blue Mountains.

May 31, 1942
Japanese midget submarines enter Sydney Harbour in WWII

May 31, 1884
Kellogg patents the cornflake

May 31, 1578
The Catacombs of Rome are discovered

[Shermatt]

Left to Right, Edsel Ford, Henry Ford, Henry Leland, and Wilfred Leland

On this day, June 1st 1917
Henry Leland, the founder of the Cadillac Motor Car Company, resigned as company president on this date in 1917. Ever since William Durant had arranged for General Motors (GM) to purchase Cadillac, Leland and Durant had endured a strained relationship. But Leland's electric starter had made Cadillac so successful early on that Durant had avoided meddling with the autonomy of his company. Leland's next great achievement at Cadillac was his supervision of his son's proposal that Cadillac should introduce a V-8 engine.

June 1st 1934
The Tokyo-based Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha (Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in English) takes on a new name: Nissan Motor Company.
Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha had been established in December 1933. The company's new name, adopted in June 1934, was an abbreviation for Nippon Sangyo, a "zaibatsu" (or holding company) belonging to Tobata's founder, Yoshisuke Aikawa. Nissan produced its first Datsun (a descendant of the Dat Car, a small, boxy passenger vehicle designed by Japanese automotive pioneer Masujiro Hashimoto that was first produced in 1914) at its Yokohama plant in April 1935. The company began exporting cars to Australia that same year. Beginning in 1938 and lasting throughout World War II, Nissan converted entirely from producing small passenger cars to producing trucks and military vehicles. Allied occupation forces seized much of Nissan's production operations in 1945 and didn't return full control to Nissan until a decade later.
In 1960, Nissan became the first Japanese automaker to win the Deming Prize for engineering excellence. New Datsun models like the Bluebird (1959), the Cedric (1960) and the Sunny (1966) helped spur Nissan sales in Japan and abroad, and the company experienced phenomenal growth over the course of the 1960s.
The energy crises of the next decade fueled the rise in exports of affordable, fuel-efficient Japanese-made cars: The third-generation Sunny got the highest score on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's tests of fuel economy in 1973. Success in the United States and other markets allowed Nissan to expand its foreign operations, which now include manufacturing and assembly plants in as many as 17 countries around the world. Today, Nissan--which dropped the Datsun name in the mid-1980s--is the third-largest car manufacturer in Japan, behind first-place Toyota and just behind Honda. After struggling in the late 1990s, the company turned itself around by building an alliance with French carmaker Renault; overhauling its luxury car line, Infiniti; and releasing the Titan pickup truck as well as revamped versions of the famous Z sports car and mid-size Altima sedan.

June 1st, 1964
It was on this day that Ford offered the now legandary 289 Hi-Po engine for the Mustang. The history behind this special engine started long before it was ever made famous by the Ford Mustang.
Beginning with Ford's Dearborn division introduction to European rally competition in 1963, Ford released the 289 High Performance (Hi-Po) engine which produced 271 HP @ 6000 RPM. With this engine a variety of Ford products ambushed continental racing of all sorts in following years. Ford's "Total Performance" was targeted at European racing.
Early versions of this engine were in the Ford Falcon’s that were being raced in the “Rally” circuit in Europe including the prestigious Monte Carlo Rally were the Falcon finished first in class.
In early 1964 the 289 Hi-Po powered Mercury Comet's made its mark on the world when it finished first in class on the world toughest course "The African Safari". The 289 Hi-Po also set record lap times at Le Mans in GT40's. This engine also powered Shelby Cobras and Daytonas to World Championships.

Monday, June 1, 1829
Today is Foundation Day for Western Australia.

The first recorded sighting of Australia's western coastline came in 1611, when Dutch mariner Hendrik Brouwer experimented with a different route to the Dutch East Indies. As the route became more popular, the Dutch began to refer to the land as "New Holland".

Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh named the Swan River in 1697 because of the black swans he saw in abundance there. In 1826, Edmund Lockyer was sent to claim the western half of the Australian continent for Britain. He arrived at King George Sound on Christmas Day in 1826, and established a military base which he named Frederick's Town (now Albany). However, this is not regarded as Western Australia's Foundation Day.

In 1829, Captain Charles Fremantle was sent to take formal possession of the remainder of New Holland which had not already been claimed for Britain under the territory of New South Wales. On 2 May 1829, Captain Fremantle raised the Union Jack on the south head of the Swan River, thus claiming the territory for Britain.
Western Australia's Foundation Day is considered to be 1 June as, on 1 June 1829, Western Australia's first non-military settlers arrived in the Swan River Colony aboard the Parmelia. The colony of Western Australia was then proclaimed on 8 June 1829, and two months later, Perth was also founded.


June 1, 1962.
Adolf Eichmann, 'Chief Executioner of the Third Reich', is hanged for his war crimes.

Adolf Eichmann was a member of the Austrian Nazi party in World War II. After his promotion to the Gestapo's Jewish section, he was essentially responsible for the extermination of millions of Jews during the war. He is often referred to as the 'Chief Executioner' of the Third Reich. After the war Eichmann escaped to Argentina in South America, but was located and captured by the Israeli secret service in 1960.
     
Eichmann's trial in front of an Israeli court in Jerusalem started on 11 April 1961. He faced fifteen criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and war crimes. As part of Israeli criminal procedure, his trial was presided over by three judges instead of a jury, all of which were refugees from the Nazi regime in Germany. Eichmann was protected by a bulletproof glass booth and guarded by two men whose families had not suffered directly at the hands of the Nazis. Eichmann was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death on 15 December 1961. He was hanged a few minutes after midnight on 1 June 1962 at Ramla prison, the only civil execution ever carried out in Israel.

June 1, 1850.
The first convicts arrive in Fremantle, Western Australia, to help populate the waning Swan River colony.

The Swan River colony, established on Australia's western coast in 1829, was begun as a free settlement. Captain Charles Fremantle declared the Swan River Colony for Britain on 2 May 1829. The first ships with free settlers to arrive were the Parmelia on June 1 and HMS Sulphur on June 8. Three merchant ships arrived 4-6 weeks later: the Calista on August 5, the St Leonard on August 6 and the Marquis of Anglesey on August 23. Although the population spread out in search of good land, mainly settling around the southwestern coastline at Bunbury, Augusta and Albany, the two original separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the Western Australian capital city of Perth.

For the first fifteen years, the people of the colony were generally opposed to accepting convicts, although the idea was occasionally debated, especially by those who sought to employ convict labour for building projects. Serious lobbying for Western Australia to become a penal colony began in 1845 when the York Agricultural Society petitioned the Legislative Council to bring convicts out from England on the grounds that the colony's economy was on the brink of collapse due to an extreme shortage of labour. Whilst later examination of the circumstances proves that there was no such shortage of labour in the colony, the petition found its way to the British Colonial Office, which in turn agreed to send out a small number of convicts to Swan River.

The first group of convicts to populate Fremantle arrived on 1 June 1850. Between 1850 and 1868, ultimately 9721 convicts were transported to Western Australia. The last convict ship to Western Australia, the Hougoumont, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868.

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 2nd 1970
Car racer, designer, and manufacturer Bruce McLaren was killed when his McLaren M8D lost its back end at high speed and collided with an earthen embankment at the Goodwood racetrack in England.

June 2nd, 1969
It was on this date that Boss 429 engines with solid lifters became the norm for both 820T and 820A spec engines. This happened after Mr. Kavanagh of Ford's E & F division issued a damage control letter on May 20, 1969. This service bulletin detailed the procedure for replacing the Boss' s 429CJ hydraulic camshaft for a 429SCJ mechanical camshaft.Ford built four versions of the Boss 429 engine: the 650hp NASCAR version and three street versions. The street versions all carried a "Z" as the engine code in the VIN but under the hood an aluminum tag and sticker distinguished which version was in use. These three versions were the 820S (heavy NASCAR rods), 820T (lighter reciprocating mass), and the 820A (820T with California Emissions).In order for Ford to sell this race inspired engine in a street legal Mustangs it had to be detuned with a milder camshaft and a different intake rocker arm ratios, 1.65:1 for the street engine vs. 1.75:1 for the NASCAR engine. The heads on the NASCAR version used a intake valve with a 2.37" diameter, compared to 2.25" on the street versions. And to fit under the stock hood the street Boss 429 intake manifold used a dual plane intake with a lower carb mounting pad in comparison to the higher non restrictive magnesium and aluminum spider manifolds used in NASCAR. Even the blocks differed from one another with the the NASCAR version using sealing rings machined into the block were the street engines were machined with the grooves in the head. The street block differed with two oil passages cast into the lifter valley, while the NASCAR block used a thicker first main cap. The hydralic cam 820S was the first of the street versions. There were 279 cars built with the more desirable "S" versions engine.The difference between a "S" and "T" version was that the "S" had lightweight magnesium valve covers, short and stout (6.549") center to center length connecting rods with 1/2" rod bolts (C9AZ-6200-A) and matching pistons. The steel crank C9AZ-6303-A was balanced for these heavy 1145-gram rods.The rods were listed by FoMoCo as the alternate NASCAR rod. The real NASCAR rod was a very beefy 6.785" rod with special 1/2" rod bolts, and was forged with a rib down the center which Ford then drilled for pressure oiling to the pin (C9AX-6200-B).
The second version was an attempt to make the engine rev quicker by lightening the rotating mass. The "T" engine used a 6.605" lighter weight rod C9AZ-6200-B, with a 3/8" rod bolts. On June 2, 1969 Ford fitted this engine with a solid cam from the 429SCJ.
The 820A was the final version used in 1970 with California style smog control.

June 2nd 1988
Consumer Reports called for ban on Suzuki Samurai automobile.

June 2, 1953
Queen Elizabeth II is crowned, watched by millions in the first televised coronation of a monarch.
Princess Elizabeth, who became Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, was born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on 21 April 1926. She was proclaimed queen on 6 February 1952, following the death of her father, George VI. She ascended the throne the following year, on 2 June 1953. The Queen was crowned in a lavish coronation ceremony attended by over 8,000 guests in Westminster Abbey, London. The ceremony included the Queen being handed the four symbols of authority - the orb, the sceptre, the rod of mercy and the royal ring of sapphire and rubies. The ceremony was completed as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, placed St Edward's Crown on her head.
Whilst approximately three million people lined the streets of London to glimpse the new monarch travelling to and from Buckingham Palace in the golden state coach, millions more around the world watched the first ever televised coronation of a monarch in a broadcast made in 44 languages.
Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

June 2, 1841.
Eyre's expedition across the Nullarbor is saved when he meets Captain Rossiter, of the whaler 'Mississippi'.

Edward John Eyre, born 5 August 1815, was the first white man to cross southern Australia from Adelaide to the west, travelling across the Nullarbor Plain to King George's Sound, now called Albany. Eyre originally intended to cross the continent from south to north, taking with him his overseer, John Baxter, and three Aborigines. He was forced to revise his plans when his way became blocked by the numerous saltpans of South Australia, leading him to believe that a gigantic inland sea in the shape of a horseshoe prevented access to the north.

Following this fruitless attempt, Eyre regrouped at Streaky Bay on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. He then continued west, which had never before been attempted, in a gruelling journey across the Nullarbor, during which his party faced starvation and thirst. Eyre's overseer, Baxter, was killed on the night of 29 April 1841, as he tried to stop two of the expedition's Aborigines from raiding the meagre supplies. After Baxter died, Eyre was left with just one loyal companion, the Aborigine, Wylie. The two continued on, trying to outrun the Aborigines whilst susbsisting on very few rations.
The pair faced starvation a number of times during their journey, in between rest stops in places when they found food was abundant. On 2 June 1841, Eyre and Wylie were travelling along the shore near Thistle Cove when they encountered the French whaler 'Mississippi'. Attracting the attention of the ship's crew by way of a fire, they were met at the beach and taken aboard the Mississippi as guests of Captain Rossiter. Here, they were given ample food and water, and their horses even shod by the ship's blacksmith. Loaded with supplies from the ship, Eyre continued his westward journey on 14 June. Eyre named the inlet Rossiter Bay after the ship's captain, though it was later renamed Mississippi Point.

[Shermatt]

June 3rd 1957
On this day in 1957, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the chemical company E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. must give up its large stock interest in the Detroit-based automobile company General Motors on the grounds that it constituted a monopoly, or a concentration of power that reduced competition or otherwise interfered with trade.
Between 1917 and 1919, Du Pont invested $50 million in GM, becoming the automaker's largest stockholder, with a 23 percent share. The chemical company's founder, Pierre S. Du Pont, served as GM's president from 1920 to 1923 and as chairman of the company's board from 1923 to 1929. By that time, GM had passed Ford Motor Company as the largest manufacturer of passenger cars in the United States, and had become one of the largest companies in the world, in any industry.
In 1949, the U.S. Justice Department brought suit against Du Pont, charging that the chemical giant's close relationship with GM gave it an illegal advantage over competitors in the sale of its automotive finishes and textiles. This advantage, according to the suit, violated the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, Congress' first attempt to regulate monopolies. The case dragged on for five years before Chicago's U.S. District Court Judge Walter J. LaBuy dismissed the government's suit, ruling that it had "failed to prove conspiracy, monopolization, a restraint of trade, or any reasonable probability of a restraint."
The Justice Department appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on June 3, 1957, the Court handed down its decision. It based its reversal of LaBuy's verdict not on the Sherman Act but on Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which had been passed in 1914 to clarify and support the Sherman Act. This section, to which government lawyers had dedicated only a tiny portion of their case, prohibited any corporation from purchasing stock in another "where the effect of such acquisition may be to restrain commerce or tend to create a monopoly of any line of commerce."
The four justices in the majority were Chief Justice Earl Warren, William Brennan, Hugo Black and William Douglas; Brennan wrote the majority opinion, which stated that the "inference is overwhelming that Du Pont's commanding position [in the sale of automobile finishes and fabrics to GM] was promoted by its stock interest and was not gained solely on competitive merit." Justices Harold Burton and Felix Frankfurter dissented from the majority, while two justices--Tom Black and John Marshall Harlan--disqualified themselves from the case: Black had been attorney general in 1949, when the Justice Department brought the case, and Harlan had previously represented Du Pont as a lawyer.

June 3rd 1965
One hundred and 20 miles above the earth, Major Edward H. White II opens the hatch of the Gemini 4 and steps out of the capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space. Attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun, White remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes. As a space walker, White had been preceded by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov, who on March 18, 1965, was the first man ever to walk in space.

June 3rd 1956
Rock and roll is banned in Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz, California, a favorite early haunt of author Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, was an established capital of the West Coast counterculture scene by the mid-1960s. Yet just 10 years earlier, the balance of power in this crunchy beach town 70 miles south of San Francisco tilted heavily toward the older side of the generation gap. In the early months of the rock-and-roll revolution, in fact, at a time when adult authorities around the country were struggling to come to terms with a booming population of teenagers with vastly different musical tastes and attitudes, Santa Cruz captured national attention for its response to the crisis. On June 3, 1956, city authorities announced a total ban on rock and roll at public gatherings, calling the music "Detrimental to both the health and morals of our youth and community."

June 3rd 1864
Ransom Eli Olds, founder of Old Motor Vehicle Company was born to Pliny and Sarah Olds in the northeastern Ohio town of Geneva.

June 3rd 1921
Mack adopted Bulldog as symbol for Mack trucks.

June 3rd 1769 
Lieutenant James Cook observes the transit of Venus across the sun, on the trip during which he would chart Australia's eastern coast

June 3rd 1790
The Lady Juliana is the first ship of the Second Fleet to arrive in Sydney Cove

June 3rd 1787 
The First Fleet arrives in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, to take on extra supplies

June 3rd 1862 
John McKinlay, during his relief expedition to locate the missing Burke and Wills, loses a horse to snake bite

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 4th 1896
At approximately 4:00 a.m. on June 4, 1896, in the shed behind his home on Bagley Avenue in Detroit, Henry Ford unveils the "Quadricycle," the first automobile he ever designed or drove.
Ford was working as the chief engineer for the main plant of the Edison Illuminating Company when he began working on the Quadricycle. On call at all hours to ensure that Detroit had electrical service 24 hours a day, Ford was able to use his flexible working schedule to experiment with his pet project--building a horseless carriage with a gasoline-powered engine. His obsession with the gasoline engine had begun when he saw an article on the subject in a November 1895 issue of American Machinist magazine. The following March, another Detroit engineer named Charles King took his own hand-built vehicle--made of wood, it had a four-cylinder engine and could travel up to five miles per hour--out for a ride, fueling Ford's desire to build a lighter and faster gasoline-powered model.
As he would do throughout his career, Ford used his considerable powers of motivation and organization to get the job done, enlisting friends--including King--and assistants to help him bring his vision to life. After months of work and many setbacks, Ford was finally ready to test-drive his creation--basically a light metal frame fitted with four bicycle wheels and powered by a two-cylinder, four-horsepower gasoline engine--on the morning of June 4, 1896. When Ford and James Bishop, his chief assistant, attempted to wheel the Quadricycle out of the shed, however, they discovered that it was too wide to fit through the door. To solve the problem, Ford took an axe to the brick wall of the shed, smashing it to make space for the vehicle to be rolled out.
With Bishop bicycling ahead to alert passing carriages and pedestrians, Ford drove the 500-pound Quadricycle down Detroit's Grand River Avenue, circling around three major thoroughfares. The Quadricycle had two driving speeds, no reverse, no brakes, rudimentary steering ability and a doorbell button as a horn, and it could reach about 20 miles per hour, easily overpowering King's invention. Aside from one breakdown on Washington Boulevard due to a faulty spring, the drive was a success, and Ford was on his way to becoming one of the most formidable success stories in American business history.


June 4th 1959
Kihachiro Kawashima selected as Executive Vice President, General Manager of American Honda Motor Company (seven employees, operating capital of $250,000.); opened shop in small storefront office on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles to serve consumers wanting small, light, easy to handle and maintain two-wheeled vehicles.

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 5th 1951
Gordon M. Buehrig, of South Bend, IN, received a patent for "Vehicle Top Construction", vehicle top with removable panels; appeared as "T-top" on 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
Buehrig was one of 25 candidates for Car Designer of the Century, an international award given in 1999 to honor the most influential automobile designer of the 20th century.
PICTURED: The 1935 Auburn Speedster designed by Gordon Buehrig

June 5th 1937
Henry Ford initiated 32 hour work week.

June 5th 1998
On this day in 1998, 3,400 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union walk out on their jobs at a General Motors (GM) metal-stamping factory in Flint, Michigan, beginning a strike that will last seven weeks and stall production at GM facilities nationwide.

Jun 5th, 1968:
Bobby Kennedy is assassinated
Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by the 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He died a day later.

Jun 5th 2004,
Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, dies, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California, was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the problems of the 1970s and helping to defeat communism.

Jun 5th 1944,
more than 1,000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries placed at the Normandy assault area, while 3,000 Allied ships cross the English Channel in preparation for the invasion of Normandy—D-Day.

Jun 5th 1866
Explorer John McDouall Stuart, first to successfully cross Australia from north to south, dies

Jun 5th 1988 
Kay Cottee returns to Sydney, the first woman to sail solo around the world.

Jun 5th 1823 
Explorer Allan Cunningham breaks through the Warrumbungle Range on his quest to find an overland route to the Liverpool Plains

jun 5th 1788 
First Fleet cattle from the government herds go bush, disappearing for seven years

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 6th 1933
eager motorists park their automobiles on the grounds of Park-In Theaters, the first-ever drive-in movie theater, located on Crescent Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey.
Park-In Theaters--the term "drive-in" came to be widely used only later--was the brainchild of Richard Hollingshead, a movie fan and a sales manager at his father's company, Whiz Auto Products, in Camden. Reportedly inspired by his mother's struggle to sit comfortably in traditional movie theater seats, Hollingshead came up with the idea of an open-air theater where patrons watched movies in the comfort of their own automobiles. He then experimented in the driveway of his own house with different projection and sound techniques, mounting a 1928 Kodak projector on the hood of his car, pinning a screen to some trees, and placing a radio behind the screen for sound. He also tested ways to guard against rain and other inclement weather, and devised the ideal spacing arrangement for a number of cars so that all would have a view of the screen.
The young entrepreneur received a patent for the concept in May of 1933 and opened Park-In Theaters, Inc. less than a month later, with an initial investment of $30,000. Advertising it as entertainment for the whole family, Hollingshead charged 25 cents per car and 25 cents per person, with no group paying more than one dollar. The idea caught on, and after Hollingshead's patent was overturned in 1949, drive-in theaters began popping up all over the country. One of the largest was the All-Weather Drive-In of Copiague, New York, which featured parking space for 2,500 cars, a kid's playground and a full service restaurant, all on a 28-acre lot.
Drive-in theaters showed mostly B-movies--that is, not Hollywood's finest fare--but some theaters featured the same movies that played in regular theaters. The initially poor sound quality--Hollingshead had mounted three speakers manufactured by RCA Victor near the screen--improved, and later technology made it possible for each car's to play the movie's soundtrack through its FM radio. The popularity of the drive-in spiked after World War II and reached its heyday in the late 1950s to mid-60s, with some 5,000 theaters across the country. Drive-ins became an icon of American culture, and a typical weekend destination not just for parents and children but also for teenage couples seeking some privacy. Since then, however, the rising price of real estate, especially in suburban areas, combined with the growing numbers of walk-in theaters and the rise of video rentals to curb the growth of the drive-in industry. Today, fewer than 500 drive-in theaters survive in the United States.

The first movie Showing "Wife Beware"

Pictured: The reverse side of the world's first drive-in movie screen, in Camden, New Jersey. (front side also shown)



June 6th 1925
Walter Percy Chrysler renamed Maxwell Motor Company as the Chrysler Corporation.

June 6th 1932
The first gasoline tax levied by US Congress was enacted as a part of the Revenue Act of 1932. The Act mandated a series of excise taxes on a wide variety of consumer goods. Congress placed a tax of 1¢ per gallon on gasoline and other motor fuel sold.

June 6, 1980 
For the second time in a week, a computer error falsely warns US forces of an impending Soviet nuclear attack.

June 6, 1944
Although the term D-Day is used routinely as military lingo for the day an operation or event will take place, for many it is also synonymous with June 6, 1944, the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east.

June 6, 1827
Explorer Allan Cunningham discovers the Darling Downs

June 6, 1835
John Batman, the native-born founder of Melbourne, signs a treaty with Aborigines entitling him to 250,000 hectares of land in Port Phillip Bay.

June 6, 1859 
Today is Queensland Day, marking the day that Queensland separated from the colony of New South Wales.

June 6, 1888 
The British Crown annexes Christmas Island

June 6, 1980 
For the second time in a week, a computer error falsely warns US forces of an impending Soviet nuclear attack.

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 7 1954
Ford Motor Company formed styling team to design entirely new car, later named Edsel. The car brand is best known as one of the most spectacular failures in the history of the United States automobile industry.
More than sixty years after its spectacular failure, Edsel has become a highly collectible item amongst vintage car hobbyists. A mint 1958 car can sell up to $100,000, while rare models, like 1960 convertible, may price up to $200,000. While the design was considered "ugly" fifty years ago, many other car manufacturers, such as Pontiac and Alfa Romeo, have employed similar vertical grille successfully on their car designs.

June 7 1962
On this day in 1962, the banking institution Credit Suisse, then known as Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA), opens the first drive-through bank in Switzerland at St. Peter-Strasse 17, near Paradeplatz (Parade Square) in downtown Zurich.
Like many developments in automotive culture--including drive-through restaurants and drive-in movies--drive-through banking has its origins in the United States. Some sources say that Hillcrest State Bank opened the first drive-through bank in Dallas, Texas, in 1938; others claim the honor belongs to the Exchange National Bank of Chicago in 1946. Regardless of when exactly it began, the trend didn't reach its height until the car-crazy era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Around that time, California-based Wells Fargo Bank introduced the "TV Auto Banker Service," where an image of the teller was broadcast to the customer in their car on a special closed-circuit television. Deposits, withdrawals and other transactions were completed using an underground pneumatic tube that whisked money and paperwork between the car and the teller station.
The SKA branch that opened in Zurich in June 1962 featured eight glass pavilions, seven outfitted for left-hand drive cars and one for vehicles with right-hand drive (such as those used in the United Kingdom and Ireland). Upon the opening of the large and modern facility, Zurich daily newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung advised motorists on how to enter the drive-through portion: "At the entrance to the bank, approaching cars trigger a sensor on the ground, activating a light trail that directs the driver to the next available counter."
The Paradeplatz drive-through was well received by the press, and in its first year of operation, the bank handled around 20,000 customers. By the 1970s, however, the automobile's popularity had led to a major traffic problem in downtown Zurich, and fewer and fewer drivers opted to stop to do their banking from their cars. After years without a profit, SKA closed the drive-through in 1983.
In the United States, by contrast, drive-through banking never lost its popularity. Nearly all major banks nationwide offer some type of drive-through option, from regular teller service to 24-hour automated teller machines (ATMs). In recent years, drive-through banking reached the previously untapped Asian market: Citibank opened China's first drive-through ATM at the Upper East Side Central Plaza in Beijing in August 2007.

June 7th 1976
Disco as a musical style predated the movie Saturday Night Fever by perhaps as many as five years, but disco as an all-consuming cultural phenomenon might never have happened without the 1977 film and its multi-platinum soundtrack featuring such era-defining hits as the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" and Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You." What is absolutely certain is that Saturday Night Fever would never have been made were it not for a magazine article detailing the struggles and dreams of a talented, young, Italian-American disco dancer and his scruffy entourage in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. That article—"The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night," by journalist Nik Cohn—was published on this day in 1976 in the June 7 issue of New York magazine.

June 7th, 1770
Lieutenant James Cook names Palm Island, off Australia's eastern coast.

June 7th 1825 
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) officially separates from New South Wales.

June 7th 1654 
Louis XIV is crowned King of France

June 7th 1942 
The Battle of Midway, between American and Japanese forces, ends with a US victory.

June 7th also marks "International Donut day" ...(9 things you didn’t know about donuts)
In honor of National Donut Day, we share some fun facts about the sweet treats you probably didn't know.
* In the U.S. alone, more than 10 billion donuts are made every year. Between 27 locations, Lamar’s Donuts produces 17 million donuts per year.
* The US donut industry is worth 3.6 billion dollars.
* The largest donut ever made was an American-style jelly donut weighing 1.7 tons, which was 16 feet in diameter and 16 inches high in the center.
* Per capita, Canada has more donuts shops than any other country.
* The hole in the donut’s center appeared in the first half of the 19th Century and allows the donut to cook more evenly.
* The Dutch are often credited with bringing donuts to the U.S. with their olykoeks, or oily cakes in the 1800s.
* Adolph Levitt invented the first donut machine in 1920.
* Ray’s Original Glazed Donut only has 220 calories, while a bagel and cream cheese averages 450 calories.
* The Guinness World record for donut eating is held by John Haight, who consumed 29 donuts in just over 6 minutes.

[Shermatt]

Bit of an early post as Im on the road the whole day


Porsche Type1-356 in the Porsche Museum
 
On this day,June 8th 1948, a hand-built aluminum prototype labeled "No. 1" becomes the first vehicle to bear the name of one of the world's leading luxury car manufacturers: Porsche. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche test drove first Porsche two-seat roadster sports car, Project 356-1, built in a sawmill in Gmund, Austria (Tyrolean Alps).
Dr. Ferdinand Porsche debuted his first design at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900. The electric vehicle set several Austrian land-speed records, reaching more than 35 mph and earning international acclaim for the young engineer. He became general director of the Austro-Daimler Company (an outpost of the German automaker) in 1916 and later moved to Daimler headquarters in Stuttgart. Daimler merged with the Benz firm in the 1920s, and Porsche was chiefly responsible for designing some of the great Mercedes racing cars of that decade.
Porsche left Daimler in 1931 and formed his own company. A few years later, Adolf Hitler called on the engineer to aid in the production of a small "people's car" for the German masses. With his son, also named Ferdinand (known as Ferry), Porsche designed the prototype for the original Volkswagen (known as the KdF: "Kraft durch Freude," or "strength through joy") in 1936. During World War II, the Porsches also designed military vehicles, most notably the powerful Tiger tank.
At war's end, the French accused the elder Porsche of war crimes and imprisoned him for more than a year. Ferry struggled to keep the family firm afloat. He built a Grand Prix race car, the Type 360 Cisitalia, for a wealthy Italian industrialist, and used the money to pay his father's bail. When Porsche was released from prison, he approved of another project Ferry had undertaken: a new sports car that would be the first to actually bear the name Porsche. Dubbed the Type 356, the new car was in the tradition of earlier Porsche-designed race cars such as the Cisitalia. The engine was placed mid-chassis, ahead of the transaxle, with modified Volkswagen drive train components.
The 356 went into production during the winter of 1947-48, and the aluminum prototype, built entirely by hand, was completed on June 8, 1948. The Germans subsequently hired Porsche to consult on further development of the Volkswagen. With the proceeds, Porsche opened new offices in Stuttgart, with plans to build up to 500 of his company's own cars per year. Over the next two decades, the company would build more than 78,000 vehicles.

June 8th 1986
Tim Richmond won the first of his seven Winston Cup Series races in 1986, a total that would vault him to third place in the Series point race and solidify his reputation as one of NASCAR's greatest drivers. He had his career cut short when he contracted HIV and died of complications from AIDS on 19th Aug 1989.

June 8th 1770 
Lieutenant James Cook names Palm Island, off Australia's eastern coast

June 8th 1825 
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) officially separates from New South Wales

June 8th 1654 
Louis XIV is crowned King of France

June 8th 1942 
The Battle of Midway, between American and Japanese forces, ends with a US victory

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 9th 2006
The animated feature film "Cars," produced by Pixar Animation Studios, roars into theaters across the United States.
For "Cars," which won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Pixar's animators created an alternate America inhabited by vehicles instead of humans. The film's hero is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a Corvette-like race car enjoying a sensational debut on the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) circuit. Arrogant and foolish, with talent to burn, McQueen thinks of himself as a one-man show. After he refuses a tire change during the prestigious Piston Cup race, McQueen blows a huge lead, setting up a three-way tie-breaking race with The King, a longtime champion, and Chick Hicks, an intimidating competitor with a chip on his shoulder. On the way to the race site in California, however, McQueen goes off course (and off the interstate) and ends up in Radiator Springs, a forgotten town on the now-defunct Route 66.
At first desperate to escape, McQueen learns to appreciate Radiator Springs, especially after finding a best friend (the rusting tow-truck Mater, as in Tow-Mater), a love interest (Sally Carrera, a fetching Porsche) and a mentor (it turns out the town's gruff doctor-mechanic, Doc Hudson, is actually the Hudson Hornet, a real-life NASCAR legend). Among the other memorable inhabitants of Radiator Springs are an aging hippie VW van; a military Jeep named Sarge; Flo, a glamorous show car and proprietress of the V-8 Café (a gas station); Ramon, a Chevy Impala low rider; and Guido, a Fiat who owns a tire shop and is obsessed with Ferraris.
As director John Lasseter told The New York Times, he was inspired to make "Cars" by a cross-country road trip he took with his wife and five sons, as well as by a general love of automobiles. While researching the movie, the team of animators traveled along the historic Route 66, once the iconic route to the American West and now bypassed by interstate highways. (The "Mother Road" was decertified in 1985 and has been reborn as a tourist attraction.) In addition to the painstaking depictions of both classic and modern cars and their distinctive personalities, "Cars" features the voices of some of the leading figures in auto racing, beginning with the late Paul Newman, the legendary actor-turned-race car driver, as Doc Hudson. Racing legends Mario Andretti (as himself), Richard Petty (as The King) and Michael Schumacher (as a Ferrari) can also be heard, along with sports announcers Darrell Waltrip and Bob Costas.

June 9th 1903
Stanley Steamer received a patent for a "Steam Motor-Vehicle"; arrangement of engine on axle and housing.

June 9th 1909
Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.
In later years, she lived in Covina, California, where in 1961 she wrote and published the story of her journey 'Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron'. Between 1909 and 1975, Ramsey drove across the country more than 30 times. On October 17, 2000, she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 10th 1947
Saab introduced its first car, the model 92001, the Ursaab prototype. Saab had been primarily a supplier of military aircraft before and during World War II. With the end of the war, company executives realized the need to diversify the company's production capabilities. After an exhaustive planning campaign that at one point led to the suggestion that Saab manufacture toasters, But company executives decided to start building motor cars. Saab director Sven Otterbeck placed aircraft engineer Gunnar Ljungstrom in charge of creating the company's first car.

June 10th 1954
General Motors announced its research staff had built the GM Turbocruiser, a modifed GMC coach powered by a gas turbine; engine consisted of a single burner with two turbine wheels (one used to drive the centrifugal compressor, second delivered power for the transmission to the rear wheels of the vehicle).

June 10th 1954
Paul Newman, the blue-eyed movie star-turned-race car driver, accomplishes the greatest feat of his racing career on this day in 1979, roaring into second place in the 47th 24 Hours of Le Mans, the famous endurance race held annually in Le Mans, France.
Newman emerged as one of Hollywood's top leading men in the 1960s, with acclaimed performances in such films as "The Hustler" (1961), "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969). Also in 1969, he starred in "Winning" as a struggling race car driver who must redeem his career and win the heart of the woman he loves--played by Newman's real-life wife, Joanne Woodward--at the Indianapolis 500. To prepare for the movie, Newman attended racing school, and he performed many of the high-speed racing scenes in the movie himself, without a stunt double. In 1972, Newman began his own racing career, winning his first Sports Club Car of America (SCCA) race driving a Lotus Elan. He soon moved up to a series of Datsun racing sedans and won four SCCA national championships from 1979 to 1986.
Newman's high point at the track came in June 1979 at Le Mans, where he raced a Porsche 935 twin-turbo coupe on a three-man team with Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen. His team finished second; first place went to two brothers from Florida, Don and Bill Whittington, and their teammate, Klaus Ludwig. Drama ensued during the last two hours of the race, when the Whittingtons' car--also a Porsche 935--was sidelined with fuel-injection problems and it looked like Newman's team could overtake them to grab the win. In the end, however, they had trouble even clinching second due to a dying engine. The Whittington team covered 2,592.1 miles at an average speed of 107.99 mph, finishing 59 miles ahead of Newman, Barbour and Stommelen.
After the race, The New York Times quoted the 54-year-old Newman as saying he might not race at Le Mans again: "I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for this. And my racing here places an unfortunate emphasis on the team. It takes it away from the people who really do the work." In fact, he continued racing into his eighties, making his last start at the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway in 2006. He also found success as a race car owner, forming a team with Carl Haas that became one of the most enduring in Indy car racing. Newman died in September 2008 at the age of 83.

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 11th 1939
Racer Jackie Stewart, popularly know as the Flying Scotsman was born in Dumbarton, Scotland


June 11th 1994
TOYOTA Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology was Established on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation.

June 11th 1895
Charles E. Duryea received a patent for a "Road Vehicle", first US patent granted to an American inventor for a gasoline-driven automobile.

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 12th 1940, Edsel Ford telephones William Knudsen of the U.S. Office of Production Management (OPM) to confirm Ford Motor Company's acceptance of Knudsen's proposal to manufacture 9,000 Rolls-Royce-designed engines to be used in British and U.S. airplanes.
By the spring of 1940, Nazi Germany had conquered Poland, Norway and Denmark and pushed France to the brink of defeat. An increasingly nervous General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the United States needed to rearm in order to prepare for the possibility of a German attack on American shores. That May, Roosevelt called on Knudsen, a former Ford executive who became president of General Motors in 1937, to serve as director general of the OPM, the agency responsible for coordinating government purchases and wartime production. Knudsen had barely settled in Washington when he received an urgent appeal from the British government: The Royal Air Force (RAF) was in desperate need of new airplanes to defend Britain against an expected German offensive.
Unlike other automakers, Ford had already built a successful airplane, the Tri-Motor, in the 1920s. In two meetings in late May and early June 1940, Knudsen and Edsel Ford agreed that Ford would manufacture a new fleet of aircraft for the RAF on an expedited basis. One significant obstacle remained, however: Edsel's father Henry, who still retained complete control over the company he founded, was known for his opposition to the possible U.S. entry into World War II. Edsel and Charles Sorensen, Ford's production chief, had apparently gotten the go-ahead from Henry Ford by June 12, when Edsel telephoned Knudsen to confirm that Ford would produce 9,000 Rolls-Royce Merlin airplane engines (6,000 for the RAF and 3,000 for the U.S. Army). However, as soon as the British press announced the deal, Henry Ford personally and publicly canceled it, telling a reporter: "We are not doing business with the British government or any other government."
In fact, according to Douglas Brinkley's biography of Ford, "Wheels for the World," Ford had in effect already accepted a contract from the German government. The Ford subsidiary Ford-Werke in Cologne was doing business with the Third Reich at the time, which Ford's critics took as proof that he was concealing a pro-German bias behind his claims to be a man of peace. As U.S. entry into the war looked ever more certain, Ford reversed his earlier position, and in May of 1941 the company opened a large new government-sponsored facility at Willow Run, Michigan, for the purposes of manufacturing B-24E Liberator bombers (pictured above) for the Allied war effort. In addition to aircraft, Ford Motor plants produced a great deal of other war materiel during World War II, including a variety of engines, trucks, jeeps, tanks and tank destroyers.


June 12th 1952
Maurice Olley, Chevrolet's chief engineer, completed chassis, code-named Opel, for eventual use in 1953 Corvette.
Maurice Olley was the ultimate engineer. He had a passion for understanding engineering fundamentals and was committed to creating solutions to solve mechanical engineering problems related to automobiles. His entire career, from his time at Rolls-Royce to his 25 years at General Motors and Chevrolet, prepared him for the important role he was asked to play with the Corvette. But his contribution would have been just as passionate whether it had been applied to a Buick Roadmaster or to the Corvette. To Maurice Olley, it wasn’t the specific product that motivated him; it was how he could improve the function of the product while furthering the understanding of the engineering principle behind it.
Working along side Harley Earl and Bob McLean, Olley developed the chassis and suspension of the first-generation Corvette. Acting as head of Chevrolet Research and Development, he headed the engineering team that worked to perfect the early Corvettes and hired Zora Arkus-Duntov to continue the improvements.
Olley had a passion for making an automobile as good as it can be, along with an unmistakable influence on the development of the first Corvette.


June 12th 1931 
The territories of North Australia and Central Australia are reunited as the Northern Territory


June 12th 1948 
Donald Bradman scores 138 in the First Test at Trent Bridge.


June 12th 2003 
Optus launches the C1 satellite, the largest Australian hybrid communications and military satellite ever launched.


June 12th 1929 
WWII Holocaust diarist, Anne Frank, is born.


June 12th 1964 
Anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, is given a life sentence in jail

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 13th 1895
Emile Levassor drives a Panhard et Levassor car with a two-cylinder, 750-rpm, four-horsepower Daimler Phoenix engine over the finish line in the world's first real automobile race. Levassor completed the 732-mile course, from Paris to Bordeaux and back, in just under 49 hours, at a then-impressive speed of about 15 miles per hour.
Levassor and his partner Rene Panhard operated one of the largest machine shops in Paris in 1887, when a Belgian engineer named Edouard Sarazin convinced Levassor to manufacture a new high-speed engine for the German automaker Daimler, for which Sarazin had obtained the French patent rights. When Sarazin died later that year, the rights passed to his widow, Louise. In 1889, visitors to the Paris exposition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution were able to admire not only Gustave Eiffel's now-famous tower, but also a Daimler-produced automobile with one of the new Panhard et Levassor-constructed engines. The following year, Levassor married Louise Sarazin.

By 1891, Levassor had built a drastically different automobile, placing the engine vertically in front of the chassis rather than underneath or behind the driver--a radical departure from the carriage-influenced design of earlier vehicles--and put in a mechanical transmission that the driver engaged with a clutch, allowing him to travel at different speeds. In the years to come, this arrangement, known as the Systeme Panhard, would become the model for all automobiles. In 1895, a committee of journalists and automotive pioneers, including Levassor and Armand Peugeot, France's leading manufacturer of bicycles, spearheaded the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race in order to capitalize on public enthusiasm for the automobile. Out of 46 entries, Levassor finished first but was later disqualified on a technicality; first place went to a Peugeot that finished 11 hours behind him.
The Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race highlighted France's superiority in automotive technology at the time, and established Panhard et Levassor as a major force in the fledgling industry. Its success spurred the creation of the Automobile Club de France in order to foster the development of the motor vehicle and regulate future motor sports events. Over the next century, these events would grow into the Grand Prix motor racing circuit, and eventually into its current incarnation: Formula One.

June 13th 1978
Ford Motor Company Chairman, Henry Ford II, fired Lee Iaccoca, the mustang designer, from the position of president, ending a bitter personal struggle between the two men.

June 13th 1980
Markus Winkelhock (born June 13, 1980 in Stuttgart Germany was a German Formula One driver. Winkelhock is the only driver in Formula One history to start last on the grid and lead the race in his first Grand Prix, and due to the red flag and restart, is also the only driver in Formula One history to start both last and first on the grid in the same Grand Prix.

Published Jul 13, 2004
Lee A. Iacocca, who gave the world the Ford Mustang and revived Chrysler by popularizing the modern minivan, left the automobile industry a decade ago. But he is still pushing new ideas. His latest product was a spray-on version of Olivio, a butter substitute made from olive and canola oils. Mr. Iacocca, the founder and principal owner of Olivio Premium Products, joined some of his grandchildren that fall in testing the company's new spray pump on soda crackers.

[Shermatt]

June 14th 1928
Leon Duray drove his Miller 91 Packard Cable Special to a world close-coursed speed record, recording an astonishing top speed of 148.173mph, at the Packard Proving Ground in Utica, Michigan. Two weeks earlier, Duray had posted a record lap of 124mph at the Indy 500, a record that stood for 10 years until the track was banked.

June 14th 2002
In one of the most memorable scenes in the film "The Bourne Identity," released on this day in 2002, the amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) drives a vintage Austin Mini Cooper through the traffic-heavy streets of Paris to evade his police and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pursuers.

[dyates]

Hi Shermatt

Don't give up on this I love it.Would prefer to read what happened today than watch the news.Less depressing.

Derek

[Shermatt]

On this day, June 15th 1924
Ford Motor Company manufactured its 10 millionth Model T automobile.

June 15th, 1844.
Vulcanised rubber is patented by Charles Goodyear.
Vulcanisation, or curing, of rubber is a chemical process in which rubber molecules become locked together to a greater or lesser extent, making the bulk material harder, more durable and more resistant to chemical attack. The process also alters the surface of the material from a stickiness that adheres to other materials, to a smooth soft surface.
Prior to the mid-19th century, natural or India rubber had limited usefulness because it melted in hot weather, froze and cracked in cold weather, and tended to stick to virtually everything. Charles Goodyear, a businessman who experimented with the properties of gum elastic, accidentally discovered the process of vulcanisation of rubber when he dropped some rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove. He received US Patent No. 3,633 on 15 June 1844 for his invention.
Goodyear did not benefit from his invention as Englishman Thomas Han**** copied his idea and attained a British patent for the process before Goodyear applied for a British patent. However, vulcanised rubber was later was made into tyres emblazoned with Goodyear's name. The Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company adopted the Goodyear name because of its activities in the rubber industry, but it has no other links to Charles Goodyear and his family.

June 15th 1937
Harold T. Ames, of Chicago, IL, chief executive of Duesenberg, received a patent for a "Headlight Structure"; retractable headlamps (defining detail on Cord 810).

June 15th 1986
Driving legend Richard Petty makes the 1,000th start of his National Association for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) career, in the Miller American 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan. He became the first driver in NASCAR history to log 1,000 career starts.

15th June 1966
Andrew Goldman was born to rich oil tycoon Marty Mcfly from the movie "back to the future". Andrew went on through the 20th century to become one of the most influential world leaders to prevent virginity gaining him the Nobel peace prize in 2019. Andrews statue to this day remains at the base of the Sydney Harbour bridge